its been a while......

..... since my last post but as always I've been busy busy busy.
This is a picture rich post!

The wee garden makeover is just about complete now, so we can enjoy it when the sun shines.

From an overgrown part of garden that we never used, the pampas grass (which I hate) was all removed

The large leylandi trees were thinned, to let the light in for other plants and the birch tree.

We built a log cabin

It's handy having the use of a tractor and trailer to collect 5 tonnes of gravel from the quarry

We laid gravel in front of the cabin

and around the greenhouse and herb border

 and also on the path to the bottom of the garden. What a difference this has made and it is a joy to sit here, when the weather allows. We even managed a bbq one day :) all our hard work has paid off!

I had my first bloom on my Passion Flower, this is planted in a large pot at the moment as I was unsure where to plant it. I think when the temperature drops I will put it in the greenhouse and hopefully it will survive till next spring, when I should have decided where it wil be planted in the garden.

 I collected my Neos 2016 directories which I have to distribute to help promote the event. The days are passing far too quickly now and the event will be upon me soon. I still have quite a bit to do to be ready to open my studio, which will be in the log cabin, but everything is coming together nicely so far. If you're in the North East of Scotland, Aberdeenshire between 10th - 18th September and you see the yellow NEOS signs outside studios and galleries etc. pop in and see all the lovely artwork and creations that local artists and makers will have on show. the directories are FREE and can be picked up from Tourist Info offices, libraries, shops, galleries, Dr's, vets, just keep your eyes peeled for them :) Fin me on page 33 of the directory, I'm number 60.

 I listed my OOAK Handmade Purple Rain Book in my Etsy shop this week as it is time for me to part with it. It's strange how something I create I just want to hold on to them for a while and other things I can let go straight away. Pop over to my Etsy shop to see more pics.

and finally...... A while ago I started to create a digital collage of my grandad and thanks to my mum for posting me a photo I was needing, it is now complete. Grandad Bertie will be hanging in the cabin throughout NEOS 2016 along with a lot of my other work.

I also created this graphic as my OH keeps saying "build a cabin and they will come" whenever he is talking about NEOS 2016. I will be using this graphic on my promotional material for the event.

I'm off to sit in the cabin to work on a project for NEOS 2016, hopefully get it completed this weekend and sent off to the printers.....................but I'll tell you more about this another time.

and still it rains.....

Where is our summer? We seem to be getting rain every day! Today is quite warm but we are still getting the odd rain shower, in fact it's absolutely bucketing down the noo. So today like many before, I am working in the garden when it's dry then running into the house to work when it rains. The weeds are loving this warm weather and rain though!

Work on the log cabin continues and we are slowly getting near to total completion. Last week I was half down painting one of the sides when the heavens opened and as I sheltered in the greenhouse I could of cried as I watched my hard work run down the side of the cabin wall. I eventually got the whole of the outside painted but it needs another coat, I just need a day of no rain to do it.

We now have insulation down on the floor and the last of the floorboards are going down tonight, so I will soon be varnishing a floor.

I received a couple of car stickers and postcards to start advertising NEOS 2016, so my car now sports a sticker in the back window. I'm getting excited and nervous about being part of this event and really need to find time to get creating some new artwork. 

Last week while nipping in and out of the house between rain showers I decided to give my wee egg safe a makeover. I've had it for a few years now and was getting bored of the cream colour. I had a tester pot of green emulsion, but it was not the green I wanted. I just mixed some acrylic paints into it until I got a colour I was happy with and it goes well with my light green kitchen wall (hard to see in pic). I couldn't find sand paper so used a nail file to rub off some of the paint on the edges and then gave it a wax. the wooden bead that is the wee door knob was then painted a deep dark red. I love it, it looks so much better sitting in my kitchen now.

...... and finally here is some summer colour, covered in rain drops. Beautiful red lilies that grow in the garden at the back of the log cabin. At the end of the season I'm going to have to split these so I can have some planted in the garden so I can see them so I can see them while I work in the cabin.

How has your weather been, are you having a summer?

A Log Cabin is born

We had been planning on building a wee summer house in the garden this year, so we have somewhere sheltered that we could enjoy the garden and the amazing view we have on those not so sunny summer days. It could also be a creative space for myself and my OH, who plays traditional flute and 4 string banjo. After looking online at summer houses our plans and budget grew a little and we thought we would get more use out of a log cabin, so a log cabin was ordered.

OH has been busy clearing a space in the garden and laying a concrete base. We took our time deciding on the best position for the cabin as we wanted to  capture as much sunlight during the day as possible, be able to see our beautiful view, see the sunset and hopefully in the winter see the northern lights.

On Saturday we unwrapped the very large package and started to work our way through this massive jigsaw puzzle pieces that would be our log cabin. We laid all the pieces out so we could work better, ie back wall pieces at back of base, side wall pieces at the side of base etc. and what happened?...... it rained! not just a shower but torrential rain with thunder and lightening! So there we were running about like loonies trying to find anything we could to cover all the timber pieces to help keep them dry.

I filmed a couple of wee time lapse videos of us working hard. 

The rain really held us back and the only thing we managed to do on Saturday was build the base frame.

We were up bright and early on Sunday and the sun was shining so building started, we worked hard as we needed to get as much done as possible. Near the end of the video I knocked the tripod over with a roof beam and didn't get it in exact same position and then because we were so busy I never noticed the battery in the camera had died.

We managed to get the front half of the roof on the cabin and the guess what?.....We live in Scotland and yes it's summer..... so it rained! Luckily we have a big tarpaulin to cover the back of the roofless cabin but this was not easy to put up in the wind and rain, but between us we managed.

Monday evening when OH came home from work the rest of the roof was put on

There's still some work to be done for it all to be finished, but I'll fill you in on that as it happens.

Yesterday morning it was raining AGAIN! So I grabbed my camera and went into the garden in search of some summer colour, a lot of the flowers are still in bud so I'm looking forward to them opening soon, but here's a few that are blooming at the moment.

A big daisy like flower, not sure what it's correct name is, but if you know please tell me.

delicate Love in the Mist

and finally my beautiful bright Lupins surrounded with buttercups.

What's in flower in your garden?

Mum's Garden, Dreamcatcher & Anti-Fracking

I've had a week off as my mum came to stay for a few days and then I drove her home and stayed with her so I could catch up with my kids and grandkids. My mum chose the best week to come for a visit as we had blue skies and beautiful sunshine and we even managed to have 2 BBQ's. I enjoyed relaxing for a few days as I am always busy doing one thing or another. I also loved catching up with my kids and grandkids and we had lots of laughs and hugs. My mums garden is looking good so I got my camera out and took a few photos.

 The old oak tree in my mums garden is starting to open its leaves. I used to love climbing this tree when I was a kid, but don't think I could manage now.

I love the rough texture of the bark on the oak tree and I think I will be using this texture somewhere in one of my digital designs.

It was my daughters birthday last month and she had asked me to paint her a Dreamcatcher as a present. She told me colours that she would like and that she wanted it to be subtle, light and faded, definitely not bright colours. So I got to work and then I framed her painting and gave it to her while I was down visiting. She loved it and was surprised at how big it was, but it still fits in the spot where she is going to hang it. It is A3 but by the time it is mounted and framed it is bigger.

Those that know me know I am dead against Fracking. Since having to do research for a college project on Anti-Fracking a few years ago the more I found out the more I knew that Fracking is not a good idea. So many disasters, pollution, health risks to humans and animals, far too many chemicals used and left in the ground, so much fresh water mixed with chemicals and sand in the process of fracking that then has to be stored and transported to "safe places" to be cleaned, but they can't remove everything! mans greed is destroying our planet!
OK RANT OVER :)
This morning I went back to one of my concept ideas for my project, which wasn't used and developed it more. Here is my final poster design. If any Anti-Fracking Groups would like to use this poster, they are more than welcome to, just contact me and I will send you a hi res jpeg file. I will even change the hashtag at the bottom of the poster or add your website or Facebook page URL for you Free of Charge :)

That's all for now folks!

Photo to Art

I have countless folders of photos I've taken on my computer and I thought it was time for a little sort out and tidy up. Everything started off fine and I was deleting those photos that were not really worth keeping. Then there was the photos of people and places I miss, so tidying up slowed down as I dealt with memories and emotions. Then the tidying up stopped when I opened the photo below of the window in the Palace ruins in Dunfermline. 

I felt the urge to get creative, so Photoshop was opened along with my folders of textures and scanned in mono prints and sketches. I ended up with this little creation which is as yet untitled.

I feel this is a portal to another place, world, fantasyland or time..... or is it a portal to an emotion? the window to my soul or a window to my dreams? 

What is through the window? Who is through the window? What or who can we see?

It was good to get creative in Photoshop, I've missed it as I've been using Illustrator when I create my vector art. 

I've also had some fun with a few wee photo shoots with my wee photographic model Gregor. We had some snow so he put on his scarf and we went outside to play.

My oldest son suggested that wee Gregor should have a sword (my family all know how nuts I am lol), so a sword wee Gregor was going to get!I made him a sword and then I maybe I got a little carried away but here he is.............. wee Braveheart Gregor :)

Wee Gregor has his own album on Flickr called the Adventures of Gregor McGregor which I add all his photos to. He has washed his blue make-up off now, so I wonder what we will get upto next? He told me he wants to go surfing...........mmmm! well I'll see if I can arrange that for him sometime in the future

Keep Dreaming

I'm still designing and creating on my computer but I'm also trying to spend more time getting back to creating in more traditional ways again. This week it was the turn of my watercolours to come out in my creative space, they haven't been out for a long long time. What fun I had, music playing, standing drawing and painting with a wee dance thrown in too..... much to the shock of my 2 dogs who looked slightly traumatised by my weird dance moves :)

I thought I'd paint something quite easy to start with.......mmmmm did I say easy?

I gave the paper a colour wash background and then gradually built the dreamcatcher up from there. I am quite pleased with how it turned out, having said that though I am not happy with the stringing in the centre. I am going to try another dreamcatcher soon with better stringing

This week I have also added Wings of Change greeting cards to my shop (only 2 available)

and Cool Yule Penguin Christmas cards (larger the pack the cheaper they get)

Winter is definitely on its way now, the swallows have all left to go to warmer climates and the geese are gathering down on the loch, they are my alarm call in the morning when they fly over the croft to go feed for the day. Almost every morning now there's a chill in the air and the mist is trapped in the valley.

Yesterday it took till almost lunchtime for the mist to totally rise and vanish, but then we had quite a warm sunny blue sky day. I even  ate my lunch outside and managed a spot of gardening.

As the sun sets the chilly night air starts to close in again and it's time to get cosy in front of the woodburner.

We've also been having some beautiful clear star filled skies at night, so I'm thinking I should try a little night time photography. If this works out I will post pics here.

I've just remembered what is was that I forgot at the end of my last post lol There have been Red Kites in the area for a few years but now they are flying up over the croft. The buzzards in the area seem to gang together to frighten the Kites out of their territory. Such beautiful amazing birds I could watch them and the buzzards for ages.

Hows your week been?

Seagulls are ...

... in the news quite a bit just lately, because of their food thieving and occassional human attacking ways. Many people don't like them, but me, I love them them. Such a big bird, they always look clean and so white, I love watching them following the tractors ploughing fields. It seems it doesn't matter where you go there is always a gull flying around.

I took the photo below a few years ago on a visit to Fowlsheugh, I'd never seen, heard or smelled so many birds all together nesting on the cliffs. I also had my first sighting of puffins that day. Anyway this photo was my cover image on my personal Facebook page for a wee while and I felt it was time it had a facelift so I could use it again.

So after a wee bit of manipulation and some additional layers in Photoshop, it now looks like this.

I'm loving the colours and texture of the background, what do you think?

Digital Downloads & EU VAT Legislation

This is all heed nipping boring stuff and is just making people who run a micro business which sells digital downloads question weather it's worth all the hassle to continue selling digital downloads! I am now questioning if I should or should not add my downloads to my website when I get my new online shop up and running.

On 1st January 2015 a new EU legislation came into force which affects businesses that sell digital services, such as e-books, online courses, apps, or downloads to other EU countries. VAT is now charged in the country where the products are bought, as opposed to where the seller is located.

Now I thought this is ok it won't apply to me because my revenue is very very very much below £81,000 which is the UK threshold for VAT. Unfortunately for digital goods there is no threshold, I have to collect VAT from the first £1 and every EU country has its own VAT rates ranging from 8% to 27%.

Complicated? Yeah!

I'll try and simplify this

I have a digital download in my shop priced at £1 a customer living in Switzerland would have to pay £1.08 (Swiss VAT 8%) for this.
The same £1 item is purchased by a customer living in Hungary, who would have to pay £1.27 (Hungary VAT 27%).
I would have to register for the VAT MOSS online service so I could pay any VAT that I have collected quarterly. Now if the above examples were the only EU sales that I had in a quarter I'd be sending 8p + 27p a total of just 35p to HMRC who would then send 8p to Switzerland and 27p to Hungary.
I would also need a postal address and IP address for every customer which I must keep a record of for 10 years. This all sounds really ridiculous and a lot of work for such small amounts of money.

You even need to collect the VAT if you link to online content or a download sent by a manual email! But how will they know?
Yet it is ok for me to charge just £1 (as in above examples) with no VAT and send a manual email with the digital file attached :)

So EU customers feel free to contact me if you would like to purchase a printable download and I will PayPay invoice you for cost of item minus VAT and will email the file to you within 24hrs, this in fact is how it used to be done before Etsy let us store our download files on their servers.

If I was to go ahead and add downloads to my online shop on my website then I would also need to look into software that would work out all the different VAT rates for my EU customers.

I realise that this legislation was put in place to catch the big fish like Amazon, Apple etc. but it's all the little fish that are being caught and drowned! I don't think it was really thought through.

Even with my little shop being on Etsy this still affects me, yet Etsy have implemented a system that works out and adds the VAT to my downloads for EU customers. As Etsy is based in the USA though my UK customers get charged VAT too, which they shouldn't as the £81,000 threshold does apply in my own country!

Still confusing!

Then theres this other thing thats annoying me...... If my EU customer pays with PayPal then PayPal charge me fees on total amount that gets paid into my account...ie. cost of item plus the VAT. Then when Etsy sends me my monthly bill which will include any VAT that I have in my PayPal account, they charge me the full VAT thus I'm out of pocket here!!!

This legislation affects so many micro businesses around the world and because of this some would rather not sell to EU customers.

So I'd like to say Thank You to the barmy Eurocrats for once again overly complicating something and putting yet another hurdle in the way of ordinay people trying to eek out a living and build a little business.

***Disclaimer: I do not claim to know everything or understand everything about EU VAT Legislation, this is just my very simple take on it. 

A few links below, but do a search there are many people and reports about this subject online.
VAT on Digital Services in EU
facebook page Digital VAT 2015  with helpful discussions
The Guardian
The Telegraph

So after all that heed nippy stuff lets finish with a little something that made me smile :)
Last week I went to the Falls of Feugh near Banchory and there is so much love happening there :)
Can you feel the love?

Love locks on the bridge

I wonder if Trish and Brian are locals

Busy busy busy...

so busy I haven't had time to blog for a few weeks, but I'm back now with lots to tell :)

I took a week off and drove south to Fife to visit my family and friends. I had a great time and didn't manage to fit everything in that I wanted to do but that's good 'cause it means I'll have to go back again soon. Catching up and spending time with all my grandkids (I've got 7) was the best bit and they keep me young.

Since coming home I've been doing a mixture of  more decorating when it's been raining (we've had a lot of rain) and gardening when it's been sunny.

My Highland Coo Heart Art greeting cards have been selling well in the Gallery, so I got to work creating some more heart art. This time I did puffins, I love these strange wee birds, they have such a sad looking expression and a comical wee walk. I'm very happy with how this turned out and will be getting greeting cards and A3 prints printed soon.

I've also had some Graphic Design work for a client that I had to keep quiet about until the event had been launched. So now I can shout about it..... I created the logo for the Mary Queen of Scots Festival which is taking place in Kinross, Scotland in September. You can find their Facebook Page here. Below are examples of how the logo could look on promotional items.

I've also just started working on another logo design for a client, that I'll show off when it's completed.

As I'm doing more design work at the moment I was thinking it was about time I got around to updating my website, but me being me have decided to give it a whole new look, so that will keep me busy once I decide what I'm going to do. My portfolio can be viewed on my website or more images for each project can be viewed in my Behance Portfolio.

One decision I have made though is to keep Ainjewelz online shop just for Craft and Party Downloads and open another online shop for my Digital and Mixed Media Art, where I will sell prints and greeting cards. Once this shop is open I'll announce it here :) I have made a start though and have a new Facebook page for my Graphic Design Services and Digital & Mixed Media Art, this can be found here. Please pop over and give me a 'Like' and  a share. Eventually my website, Facebook page and online shop will all have the same look, once I decide on a design I'm happy with......I'm so hard to please! I'm my own worst client lol

I'm also working towards having enough work to display and hopefully sell at a local Art and Craft Fair so it's a good job I love to be busy!

..... and finally the sun came out and we had a day out, of course Gregor McGregor tagged along

Taking in the sea air in Banff

I was so busy taking photos I never noticed Gregor down a can of lager lol

the sea at Gardenstone looked like the Mediterranean, but it was unbelievably windy.

Had a great day out and hope to go back to the north east coast with my camera again soon when I have time to take a day off.

Where have you been on your sunny days off?